Questions on my new V3.0

I've had my Phantom 2 Vision Plus V3.0 for about 2 weeks now and have had many good times so far and a few scary moments. The first scary moment was over the weekend when I made a bad judgment on a waypoint altitude and hit a tree. It was about 1200 feet away from me but the "find my phantom" app worked great and luckily it landed upside down. Broke two props and not another scratch on it. I was flying again within an hour after a short drying period due to the snow. The second happened last night when my phone died during a ground station flight. I then did not know where my Phantom was and feared the worse. I decided to turn my transmitter off to initiate failsafe mode. I could not hear or see it after a minute and panicked. When I turned my transmitter back on I didn't notice that the throttle stick was in the back position where it would normally shut the props down. At this point I figured it just fell out of the sky and I was getting ready to go look for it but after another minute I heard the swarm of bees above me and there it was. I was never so relieved. Here are some questions:
1. Does the Phantom look at it's altitude before actually shutting down with the throttle stick? Just curious if it knows it's 200 feet in the air and knows not to shut down.
2. Do any of the switches initiate a return to home if your phone does die or do you have to shut the transmitter off to do this?
3. I read that you are to cycle the batteries after so many charges. I do not see the steps to do this. How is it done?
Thanks in advance for any answers.

I've had my Phantom 2 Vision Plus V3.0 for about 2 weeks now and have had many good times so far and a few scary moments. The first scary moment was over the weekend when I made a bad judgment on a waypoint altitude and hit a tree. It was about 1200 feet away from me but the "find my phantom" app worked great and luckily it landed upside down. Broke two props and not another scratch on it. I was flying again within an hour after a short drying period due to the snow. The second happened last night when my phone died during a ground station flight. I then did not know where my Phantom was and feared the worse. I decided to turn my transmitter off to initiate failsafe mode. I could not hear or see it after a minute and panicked. When I turned my transmitter back on I didn't notice that the throttle stick was in the back position where it would normally shut the props down. At this point I figured it just fell out of the sky and I was getting ready to go look for it but after another minute I heard the swarm of bees above me and there it was. I was never so relieved. Here are some questions:
1. Does the Phantom look at it's altitude before actually shutting down with the throttle stick? Just curious if it knows it's 200 feet in the air and knows not to shut down.
2. Do any of the switches initiate a return to home if your phone does die or do you have to shut the transmitter off to do this?
3. I read that you are to cycle the batteries after so many charges. I do not see the steps to do this. How is it done?
Thanks in advance for any answers.

Scott Ebersole
Duncansville, PA USA

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The ground station route is uploaded to the Drone so does not need the phone at all once it is on its route.

The Phantom should NOT drop from the sky if the left stick is locked downwards. It should only do this if the Drone is "unable" to descend any further for 3 seconds. In other words, if you have a drone hovering 100 feet in the air and suddenly lock the left stick down, it will keep descending at 2m/s until it gets near the ground where it will slow to 0.6m/s and then after landing it will shut-off after 3 seconds. However, I do not recommend this way of auto-landing as it can go into VRS or tip.

You can force a return to home with switch 1 (right-hand switch) IF you put your Drone/Controller into NAZA-M mode and set switch 1 bottom position to RTH.

I think switching off the controller and on again with the left stick down is a corner case that may not have been considered. I strongly suggest you switch to NAZA-M mode which gives you a lot more flexibility

You cycle the battery by flying the Drone until it's at 8% (or just leave the drone on without flying until 8% but that will take ages and ages). It is in the manual but I don't have it in-front of me to tell you the page. Just do this once a month and you should be fine. Normally it is fine to store the battery at 40-50%.

To add to the battery question.. the manual (which seems as though didn't read) recommends you cycle the battery after 20 discharges. The new batteries, such as the one that ships w/ your v3 will discharge itself to 50% after 10 days of inactivity.

To add to the battery question.. the manual (which seems as though didn't read) recommends you cycle the battery after 20 discharges. The new batteries, such as the one that ships w/ your v3 will discharge itself to 50% after 10 days of inactivity.

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Indeed the new batteries will do that...but they won't do the full discharge to 8% which is recommended every 20 discharges by themselves from what I understood.

Incidentally the manual that came with my V3 (printed version) was not a V3 manual. It still showed the controller with batteries being inserted into it (AA)

I'm not an experienced flier but I'd _highly_ recommend that you watch some of the many Youtube video's on Ground Stations and the various flying modes (IOC/NAZA). I also recommend that you lable each S switch if/when you switch to NAZA mode.

Personally I'd not recommend turning off the transmitter (in Ground Station mode it does not change anything anyway). Better to change over from Phantom mode tto NAZA mode and use the S switches to control this function. If you turn the transmitter off there is the extra step of the transmitter needing to re-establish it's radio connection.

One question that I did not see addressed was what happens to the drone when your phone dies. The phone is really only for the on-board camera. The RC controller controls the Phantom. So if the phone dies, nothing changes... you just can't control the camera or see it's video feed.

Always error on the side of extra altitude. Also by default the RTH is like 66 feet. Set this higher and learn naza m mode. Homelock is awesome! I set RTH to 150 and never do ground station missions less than 150 feet each waypoint and usually 200+

Watch out for Ground station. Your drone won't do what you think it will. Switching off your phone does nothing - it's on a pre-programmed course. And as for switching off the remote - that also does nothing. Ground station is designed to continue the mission if it loses connection with the remote.

If your quad senses it's running out of power it usually returns to home. Not under ground station. It just keeps plowing along. When it runs out of juice it lands where it is on it's mission maybe a long way away.

The only way to stop a ground station mission would be to hit the abort on your phone if you are still in contact with the drone. Or if your remote is in contact with the drone you can flip the right switch switch down and up to take manual control. RTH on the remote also works in NAZA mode under ground station - but again only if you are in contact.

Lots that can go wrong with ground station - and that's before we get into the whole Line of Sight regulations it violates.

Best bet is to set point #1 directly above home at some safe height. Or better yet launch the drone, get it up to a safe height - then upload the waypoints and hit Go.